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This is a really nice argument and I hope that Kevin and others continue to pursue it. However, I think there is a subtle flaw in the presented argument that i

by gwf 7y ago

This is a really nice argument and I hope that Kevin and others continue to pursue it. However, I think there is a subtle flaw in the presented argument that is parallel to issues illuminated by Goedel's incompleteness theorem. The problem, I believe, is with the assertion: > 1. The many-worlds interpretation is true. > 2. Consciousness experiences the reality in which it lives the longest. > If all the previous assumptions are true, then at least one of these two must be false. Both of these statements can be simultaneously true if we allow for a third possibility that is logically consistent with the entire argument: 3. Having near logical certainty and awareness that quantum immortality is true is fundamentally incompatible with living on the subjective immortal multiverse timeline. This would actually be a robust assumption to have explicitly included at the start, as it also makes intuitive sense. Afterall, if you absolutely knew that quantum immortality was true, then you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences. Such a universe would basically lack a coherent sense of cause-and-effect from your subjective point of view. And if it was a universe where cause-and-effect don't hold for you, then how could you have logical certainty about anything? This means that if quantum immortality is true, you can never have logical certainty of its truth. This is very similar to how Goedel's incompleteness requires that there be true statements that can't be proven as true because the existence of an explicit proof would negate the statement itself, breaken the consistency of the system of logic (and, hence, making it incomplete by necessity).

marcofiset 7y ago
> if you absolutely knew that quantum immortality was true, then you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences. What if you get put on a path where you eventually die because of your recklessness, and that was the longest you would have stayed alive? Basically you already exhausted all possible paths but this one.
vankessel 7y ago
Thank you. I really like the point you are making, but I am unsure about a lack of cause and effect. When I think of cause and effect, I think of it as taking the state of the universe from state t+0 to t+1 using the laws of physics. All of it being deterministic, except for quantum mechanics. This indeterminism in QM creating the branches allowing one to escape death. Couldn't believing in quantum immortality be compatible with this? You could do things like firing a gun to your head, and it would misfire every time. You could jump off a building and would land in a passing open-topped garbage truck full of soft material. You'd experience all sorts of crazy coincidences, but all of them plausibly deniable and within the framework of cause and effect as we know it. With that said, I feel like what you are saying is true but can not fully formulate my thoughts on it yet. I agree completely that you can never have logical certainty of it's truth, but I'm not certain it's contingent on it being true. Perhaps we should instead say that QI is either true or false, but we can never prove which? This removes the implication but still makes sense in the context of Godel's first incompleteness theorem.
- Iv 7y ago
  I find the whole QI following so weird... Do people really argue that QM can provide cartoon-like effects like a convenient truck under the bridge? Do people really argue that conscience is so special that the universe refuses to end one? The universe don't differentiate between a dead human and a living one. From a QM point of view, both body masses, correctly placed, can work as an "observer" to cause waveform collapse.
  - jerf 7y ago
    "Do people really argue that conscience is so special that the universe refuses to end one?" QI doesn't protect consciousness. Its argument applies to any quantum state, described by any arbitrarily complicated acceptance function of that state. The QI argument implies that you can pick up a rock, and that there exists some set of universes in which that rock will survive indefinitely, exactly as it is now, to any degree of accuracy you care to specify. It's just the more precise your specification gets, the lower the probability mass is. That's why in my other message, I say QI only promises consciousness. Technically, there are universes in which by sheer quantum chance you are in fact healthy and happy indefinitely. It's just that "a healthy and happy body" is incomprehensibly more orders of magnitude more unlikely than being stuck in whatever constitutes the minimally conscious body. And in fact, the latter isn't a unique construct either. It's actually a function of the selectivity you apply to the acceptance function; you have the universes in which you are conscious enough to realize your plight, but they're dominated by the universes in which you are too minimally conscious to even realize that, which are in turn dominated by the universes in which you are just not conscious. But those are excluded from your consciousness' future states, which means your consciousness is left over with whatever else is left. The distinctive thing that consciousness adds to the argument is merely that if you metaphorically drew out the future universes in which your consciousness survives, there is something meaningful (to us, anyhow!) "inside" that set. You can do the same thing to the rock as I described above, but there isn't really anything "inside" that set; it's just the rock and nothing else. Excepting of course that vanishing fraction of the universes in which quantum processes drive the rock to become conscious by any definition of your choice, of course. (Another thing I'd point out is that for this discussion, I have no concern about what your definition of "consciousness" is. The argument works regardless of your definition, it just tweaks the exact non-zero numbers that come out.)
perl4ever 7y ago
If quantum immortality is true, and I, knowing that, step in front of a car, how is it going to prevent my bones from breaking? I remember a haunting fantasy short story about a boy in a small town who accidentally meets and becomes friends with the man who digs all of the graves. Eventually he notices that somehow, the gravedigger knows when a grave is needed before a person dies, but won't say how or who. Often it is possible to guess though. One day, he's told that he'll never guess who the next grave is for, and indeed, he can't. So that night he finds out his parents have been in an auto accident, and therefore one of them is presumably going to die...and so he goes back and kills the gravedigger and buries him in the grave that was intended for one of his parents. The rest of the story is that once the gravedigger is dead, people in the town stop dying...but that is not a good thing - first his mother is paralyzed, then she has a stroke, then there is a fire... And the end is that the murderer becomes the new gravedigger to restore normality and now old, he hopes for someone to relieve him of the job.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  The other view is that QI is literally true, and it literally proves the existence of an immortal soul which transcends whatever happens to the body. So consciousness can never be killed. But it can be temporarily inconvenienced. The problem with this argument is that the universe continues to operate when we're asleep, in a coma, etc. It's almost as if it has an independent existence that doesn't rely on our personal experience of it.
  - akvadrako 7y ago
    QI is usually explained in terms of many worlds, where there is an objective reality independent of our experience. Those concepts aren’t incompatible, if that’s what you were suggesting by your last sentence.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  Under many worlds, the you who did not step in front of the car avoids broken bones. If there is anything to quantum immortality, it is only in those circumstances where the probability of immediate death is strictly between 0 and 1. I suspect, however, that quantum immortality is merely the tautology that survivors, and only survivors, survive, and has nothing to do with interpretations of the QM formalism.
ars 7y ago
> you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences Only things that are random on a quantum level cause world splitting. Walking in front of a car for example is not random on a quantum level and would not cause multi-world effects. In the popular consciousness multiple worlds means every single possibility exists. This is not true! In fact there are very few macro effects that are caused by quantum randomness. Even if multiple worlds is true they are all identical except microscopically.
- rblatz 7y ago
  It’s my understanding that radioactive decay is a quantum random. Radioactive decay emits particles that can interfere with dna and cause cancer. So some number of people would have/not have cancer in these many worlds. Not all these people would have profound impacts, but the background noise would start to add up quickly.
whatisthiseven 7y ago
> Afterall, if you absolutely knew that quantum immortality was true, then you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences. On the contrary, wouldn't it be the case that all the "yous" that did such a thing died, leaving only the "yous" that attempted only a small fraction of risky events? Just because many worlds is true, it doesn't mean all possibly infinite combinations of things also exist (e.g. PI is infinite, but it doesn't contain all possible combinations of numbers, nor itself).

by gwf 7y ago

marcofiset 7y ago

> if you absolutely knew that quantum immortality was true, then you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences. What if you get put on a path where you eventually die because of your recklessness, and that was the longest you would have stayed alive? Basically you already exhausted all possible paths but this one.

vankessel 7y ago

Thank you. I really like the point you are making, but I am unsure about a lack of cause and effect. When I think of cause and effect, I think of it as taking the state of the universe from state t+0 to t+1 using the laws of physics. All of it being deterministic, except for quantum mechanics. This indeterminism in QM creating the branches allowing one to escape death. Couldn't believing in quantum immortality be compatible with this? You could do things like firing a gun to your head, and it would misfire every time. You could jump off a building and would land in a passing open-topped garbage truck full of soft material. You'd experience all sorts of crazy coincidences, but all of them plausibly deniable and within the framework of cause and effect as we know it. With that said, I feel like what you are saying is true but can not fully formulate my thoughts on it yet. I agree completely that you can never have logical certainty of it's truth, but I'm not certain it's contingent on it being true. Perhaps we should instead say that QI is either true or false, but we can never prove which? This removes the implication but still makes sense in the context of Godel's first incompleteness theorem.

Iv 7y ago
I find the whole QI following so weird... Do people really argue that QM can provide cartoon-like effects like a convenient truck under the bridge? Do people really argue that conscience is so special that the universe refuses to end one? The universe don't differentiate between a dead human and a living one. From a QM point of view, both body masses, correctly placed, can work as an "observer" to cause waveform collapse.
- jerf 7y ago
  "Do people really argue that conscience is so special that the universe refuses to end one?" QI doesn't protect consciousness. Its argument applies to any quantum state, described by any arbitrarily complicated acceptance function of that state. The QI argument implies that you can pick up a rock, and that there exists some set of universes in which that rock will survive indefinitely, exactly as it is now, to any degree of accuracy you care to specify. It's just the more precise your specification gets, the lower the probability mass is. That's why in my other message, I say QI only promises consciousness. Technically, there are universes in which by sheer quantum chance you are in fact healthy and happy indefinitely. It's just that "a healthy and happy body" is incomprehensibly more orders of magnitude more unlikely than being stuck in whatever constitutes the minimally conscious body. And in fact, the latter isn't a unique construct either. It's actually a function of the selectivity you apply to the acceptance function; you have the universes in which you are conscious enough to realize your plight, but they're dominated by the universes in which you are too minimally conscious to even realize that, which are in turn dominated by the universes in which you are just not conscious. But those are excluded from your consciousness' future states, which means your consciousness is left over with whatever else is left. The distinctive thing that consciousness adds to the argument is merely that if you metaphorically drew out the future universes in which your consciousness survives, there is something meaningful (to us, anyhow!) "inside" that set. You can do the same thing to the rock as I described above, but there isn't really anything "inside" that set; it's just the rock and nothing else. Excepting of course that vanishing fraction of the universes in which quantum processes drive the rock to become conscious by any definition of your choice, of course. (Another thing I'd point out is that for this discussion, I have no concern about what your definition of "consciousness" is. The argument works regardless of your definition, it just tweaks the exact non-zero numbers that come out.)

perl4ever 7y ago

If quantum immortality is true, and I, knowing that, step in front of a car, how is it going to prevent my bones from breaking? I remember a haunting fantasy short story about a boy in a small town who accidentally meets and becomes friends with the man who digs all of the graves. Eventually he notices that somehow, the gravedigger knows when a grave is needed before a person dies, but won't say how or who. Often it is possible to guess though. One day, he's told that he'll never guess who the next grave is for, and indeed, he can't. So that night he finds out his parents have been in an auto accident, and therefore one of them is presumably going to die...and so he goes back and kills the gravedigger and buries him in the grave that was intended for one of his parents. The rest of the story is that once the gravedigger is dead, people in the town stop dying...but that is not a good thing - first his mother is paralyzed, then she has a stroke, then there is a fire... And the end is that the murderer becomes the new gravedigger to restore normality and now old, he hopes for someone to relieve him of the job.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
The other view is that QI is literally true, and it literally proves the existence of an immortal soul which transcends whatever happens to the body. So consciousness can never be killed. But it can be temporarily inconvenienced. The problem with this argument is that the universe continues to operate when we're asleep, in a coma, etc. It's almost as if it has an independent existence that doesn't rely on our personal experience of it.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  QI is usually explained in terms of many worlds, where there is an objective reality independent of our experience. Those concepts aren’t incompatible, if that’s what you were suggesting by your last sentence.
mannykannot 7y ago
Under many worlds, the you who did not step in front of the car avoids broken bones. If there is anything to quantum immortality, it is only in those circumstances where the probability of immediate death is strictly between 0 and 1. I suspect, however, that quantum immortality is merely the tautology that survivors, and only survivors, survive, and has nothing to do with interpretations of the QM formalism.

ars 7y ago

> you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences Only things that are random on a quantum level cause world splitting. Walking in front of a car for example is not random on a quantum level and would not cause multi-world effects. In the popular consciousness multiple worlds means every single possibility exists. This is not true! In fact there are very few macro effects that are caused by quantum randomness. Even if multiple worlds is true they are all identical except microscopically.

rblatz 7y ago
It’s my understanding that radioactive decay is a quantum random. Radioactive decay emits particles that can interfere with dna and cause cancer. So some number of people would have/not have cancer in these many worlds. Not all these people would have profound impacts, but the background noise would start to add up quickly.

whatisthiseven 7y ago

> Afterall, if you absolutely knew that quantum immortality was true, then you could (and likely would) walk around taking obviously foolish risks without ever experiencing any consequences. On the contrary, wouldn't it be the case that all the "yous" that did such a thing died, leaving only the "yous" that attempted only a small fraction of risky events? Just because many worlds is true, it doesn't mean all possibly infinite combinations of things also exist (e.g. PI is infinite, but it doesn't contain all possible combinations of numbers, nor itself).